Orange Alstromeria
by Snowbound Suicide
Summary: Danny's daughter comes up with a permanent solution to the seemingly unsolvable problem that is Vlad Masters. Is there anything you would not do for your family?


We're going to be a happy family when this deed is done.

The snow crunches under my dark purple Doc Martens as I walk towards the mansion. It's a night so filled with thick flurries of snow that by the time I get to the house's massive gates I'm as drenched as I would have been if I'd genuinely been stranded here. I phase through the main gates, but other than that, I don't do anything unnatural. If I'm going to make this the Christmas we all deserve, then I have to make sure I'm careful. I have to admit I'm shaking, but that's probably from the cold. I didn't plan for it to be so cold or snow so hard. I'm standing here dressed in clothes to fit the part of a stranded girl, and the ice is treating me as such.

I lost my hat somewhere along the way walking here, but I had to take the rough ground. That way the snowfall in the next few days will cover up the steps. I can't imagine what my parents would say about my being out and about alone at night, during winter at that. I'm sure I'd be in trouble. Mom and Dad don't agree on everything, yet somehow they come together to remind me I don't have ghost powers and I shouldn't be so reckless. I've always liked night time strolls, though. They won't find anything odd about this. I'll be in a suitable amount of trouble, not enough to destroy the holidays. And anyway, maybe I'll be back before they realize I'm gone.

My ghost powers really exhausted me. I've only had them for a week, and I pushed myself to the limit to fly here. Even with a stop in the middle my legs are weak and shaking, my upper body is stiff and my arms and face are covered in quickly freezing sweat. The short sleeves of my black button up shirt are a joke when it comes to protecting my body from the cold. My thighs feel like someone's shoved icicles in them, despite the black and purple plaid pleated skirt I have over my black jeans. But I keep moving, every step closer to my goal, the source of my parent's pain, of my pain, and the greatest thing I will ever do.

Gloveless, numb hands bang unceremonious on his estate's door. I know that this time of night I'm likely to get a servant or butler answering me, but this realization and the fact that it makes my brilliant plan completely impossible hits me too late. Then the door opens and it's an annoyed looking halfa, the monster in the closet of my childhood, the bogeyman to my siblings, the nightmare of Grandma Maddie, the traitor to Grandpa Jack.

"Vlad?" I ask, sounding suitably shaky and uncertain. "Wh-where is everybody e-else?"

His expression takes that false love and concern it always does when dealing with any Fenton as he ushers me in. "Home for the holidays, of course. I give my staff a week off. Now, dear girl, what are you doing here? It's nearly twenty below out there!"

Lie. I have to lie quick and hard; I didn't plan this out well. "I was tr-trying to, to run away." There, that sounds plausible for someone as reserved as I usually am. "I, I wanted t-to just g-get away f-from everything a-and the car's i-in a ditch a-and-"

"Shh, shh. It's okay, my little frog." I hated that, but it wasn't the time to gripe about childhood nicknames. This was time to regret not taking drama class. He wrapped an arm around my shoulders and when I shuddered at the touch he attributed it to the cold immediately, unquestioningly. "Come into the den, I'll get you some tea and a nice blanket, and you can sit by the fire. After you calm down we'll figure out where the car is and I'll call someone to get it." He's smooth talking now, trying to make me feel like 'Uncle Vladdy' is going to take care of everything.

No, tonight that's not his job. I let myself be led to the living room, where I pick a seat that's leather and won't leave water stains behind. He thinks I'm being considerate. I am, but not of him, not exactly. I hold my hands out towards the fire and scan the room. There's the mother of all Christmas trees decked out in elaborate LED lights, ornaments of gold, cream and red, with strings of no doubt real pearls in the branches, and a star so ornate and intricate I don't want to consider the cost of it. The rug underneath my feet is soaking up the minor water from my shoes, but the hardwood floors don't lend themselves to retaining footprints. This is very good news for me. It'll be a merry Christmas after all.

There's a moment where I set my bag down in my lap, detaching the leather straps. Herein lies the critical seconds, those thousand little things that could go wrong, the things that make my heart race and my heartbeat thrum in my chest. It's not a drum, it's a motor. I am not nervous, I am alight with a dangerous energy born of every scar on my father's body and every memory of Plasmius I have ever born witness to. It's born of two generations of family feuding bleeding into three. I get to my feet, slipping out of my Doc Martens to pad on socked feet across the ash wood floors. All I can hear as I stand by the alcove near the door is Vlad's footsteps, the clink of fine china. Of course he'd bring fine china for a cup of tea. Any chance to try to convert me via gifts.

Focus. This is not the time to let my mind wander.

When he enters and doesn't see me, I don't let him have time to react. I jump up, wrap the bag's strap around his neck, and pull, so hard everything crashes to the ground and he can't make sense of what's happening, grasping futilely at the strap. In extreme conditions a halfa forgets to phase like a bird forgets to fly or a deer in headlights forgets to run. This is something Aunt Dani told me, but I know that period isn't indefinite. If he gets his wits about him he'll fight back, and who can blame him? It is what it is. This has to be fast. I drop to my knees and the strap cuts into Vlad's windpipe abruptly, so tight the motion brings him down with me, and he's clawing and gasping horribly, legs flailing uselessly. Flares of ectoplasmic blasts mar the floor and the ceiling, but because I'm right behind him, it's all useless. All it will be is an anomaly after this is all over. He's just covering my tracks for me. I should thank him.

My arms ache and shake and my breathing is coming in fast, my head ringing with my heartbeat and his gasps. I have never had to pull so hard on something before, the strap is cutting into my hands and leaving welts, but I hang on as Vlad collapses to the floor. I manage to stay on my knees, press one into his back, and keep pulling. I can't see his face, just the rapidly reddening skin around his brilliant silver hair. I continue to pull, feeling my elbows lock up, listening intently to our breathing, my ragged inhales and his rasping attempts at half words that never really form syllables. The sounds crash over me in waves. I'm so angry that I pull harder, tears brewing in my eyes. My brother is dead because of this man.

Vlad tried to kidnap him and Jackson, my brother, my best friend, he fought back. And nobody can prove anything because Vlad set the body on fire with ectoplasmic energy, but I knew the red color, I recognized the way a bundle of duplicates of Vlad left sets of identical footprints. My family knows what Vlad did. He did it to get a 'son', and when Jackson fought back somehow it had ended in the nine year old's death on the pavement by the fountain in Amity Park. That place was where Jackson and I had played since I was six and he was two. It was our home.

So now I'm giving Vlad the honors he gave Jackson. I'm giving him a nice unexplained death in his own home by somebody he trusted and yes, yes I'm crying, I stand and keep a foot planted in Vlad's back and keep the straps taut until I don't hear any gasps anymore and then keep on going long after there is no movement beneath me. That's when I begin screaming.

"I hate you! I had a family! He had a life! His birthday was in three weeks, you monster! You know what I got him? I got him Skylanders, I got him all the ones he didn't have, every single one! He always said people cheated him on gifts because his birthday was on Christmas, so I was going to make up for it! He was going to be ten years old and you – you – you ruined everything! I just want my brother back… I just… Jackson, Jackson never deserved this. _You_ deserved this. You started this! I didn't want to do this! You made me do it!"

I let one hand let go of the strap, and Vlad's head connects with the hard wood with a sickening thud. My chest is heaving, my hands clench into fists, but I'm not angry anymore, just empty. I stare at the body and I don't feel anything, none of the joy of victory, only a cold comfort that never again will any of my family have to face this man. It's not much. It doesn't make me feel better. I don't feel anything as I remove my foot from his back.

"You started this," I reiterate to the air. "I finished it."

I float back to my Doc Martens, deciding it's best if the only sign I was ever here is some dried water stains, mopping up footprints on the wood with my socks, and relacing my shoes onto my feet without setting foot on the ground. The strap is stretched, but it fits back onto the bag and the clasp still works. I breathe out, shakily, then one breath becomes many as I pull myself together. The tears stop. I manage to float over to the body to inspect my work, see if there's any clues I need to remove. The shattered china I sweep up with a broom and broom pan, disposing of in the trash, using washcloths as makeshift gloves to hide my fingerprints. The tea I mop up with those, and I set them in the kitchen.

But since no one is going to believe it's an accidental death, and no one will ever know it was me, I feel like I should give Vlad the final insult he gave Jackson. So I open my bag, the frog charm Jackson gave me smiling up at my expressionless face approvingly, and out come the flowers. I bought these at the halfway point, because I couldn't find them in Amity Park. These blew out my allowance, out of season and in great quantity. It was worth it. The soft flowers in my hands were easy to crush. I let the rain of orange petals fall over the body in scattered patternless disarray, and simply stopped when I had no more to crush. The Alstromeria flowers lay upon him as if he'd been caught in a garden wind.

He'd sent huge bouquets of these to Jackson's funeral. They symbolized, of all possible sentiments on this Earth, devotion. My mother was so mad she'd removed everything orange from the house that very night. Except the Skylanders, of course; she couldn't touch Jackson's beloved toys. She had looked in that moment like she'd never know happiness again.

I pick one flower up off the floor, place it in my bag's pocket, and phased through the many levels of the house until I finally came to the open sky. I turn to the moon in the now calm, clear night, and head towards home. Everything's going to be okay. I can feel it.

We're going to be a happy family forever, now.


End file.
